Changes in the availability of the Tax Transcription

A tax return transcript is a summary of your important tax information in the federal income tax return. Thus, instead of getting into the weeds with your financial information in a single fiscal year, the tax slips provide an official description of the information likely to be appreciated by creditors, such as your adjusted gross income. The type of tax statement you get determines the information you will see there.

Tax transcripts provide a full range of personally identifiable information, including sensitive data, such as a social security number. But the IRS has recently changed the format to protect respondents from identity theft that could use tax transcripts to archive fraudulent tax returns or steal data. Now, much of this information is partially blocked in tax transcripts, so even if it falls into the hands of a thief, it would be mostly useless.

Because creditors and financial assistance agencies often use your Social Security number to link copies of your tax certificate to your file and to confirm that you are the real person, the IRS is proposing a new solution. Your financial/lender agent can create and provide you with a 10-digit client file number (may be different from your social security number). You can include the client's file number in the tax transcription request so that it appears on the form after printing and the financial/lender agent can correctly compare it with the file.

Different types of transcripts are available from the IRS. When you need the information provided by a particular tax transcription, it is essential to get the right one.

How do you get a tax transcript?

Internal Revenue Service cannot always be the most accessible government organization to work with, but at least the agency makes it easy to transcribe your tax returns. And even better: it's free!

Get a tax transcription online

This is the simplest option for many people. IRS runs a portal called Get Transcription Online that you can use to request an online transcript quickly. From there, you can view the required transcript, and then print or download it.

Get the tax transcript by email

If you need to make a shipping request, you can complete the 4506-Tax Return Request Form. You can also use the Get a Transcript E-mail Online tool to send the transcript request by e-mail.

Take your toll on the phone

Finally, the IRS also allows you to use an automatic phone line to request a tax return transcription. Call agents at 1-800-908-9946.

The IRS announced that it would stop sending transcripts to taxpayers, tax professionals, and third parties to protect against identity theft on June 28 (IR-2019-101). The IRS will also stop sending tax transcripts to third parties. The new policy concerns individuals and businesses.

Once this change comes into effect, taxpayers will be able to obtain their transcripts, which are summaries of the information in return, from:

• Use IRS.gov or the IRS2Go application to access Get Transcript Online; Taxpayers must first verify their identity, but they can download or print their statement immediately.
• Use IRS.gov or the IRS2Go application to access the transcription of an email; the transcript will be delivered within ten days to the registration address;
• Call 800-908-9946 for an automatic email transcription feature;
• Form 4506T, Request for Transcript or Instruction 4506T-EZ, Abbreviated Income Tax Return, for a transcript to be sent to the payer's registered tax.

Tax specialists have different options for obtaining taxpayer transcripts, including sending e-mails to collaborators' addresses and obtaining hidden transcripts that hide personal data via the tax identification system. Provide transcripts of electronic services.

As of July 1, in another phase to prevent identity theft, Forms 4506, Request Copy, 4506-T and 4506T-EZ will not offer the option of sending transcripts to third parties. These claims are typically made by creditors and others to enable them to verify the revenue for non-taxable purposes. In the future, these requests can be met using the IRS Express Income Verification Service (IVES). The tax return information currently available through the IRS Data Retrieval tool via the free Federal Student Aid Application (FAFSA) will remain open after this change.

Since hidden names and social security numbers hide the transcripts, the IRS has created a program to help third parties process taxpayer transcripts. The IRS allows third parties to assign a client file number, such as a loan application number or student identification number. The number will appear in the transcript to help the client or student.